Monday, March 14, 2016

This Inspiring History Teacher Refused To Say "Franklin Pierce Was The Greatest President" No Matter How Many Times I Tased Him

By James J. Hamilton
Local 10th grade history teacher Glenn Masterson (or "Mr. M," as he is affectionately known by his students) refused to say "Franklin Pierce was the greatest president" no matter how many times I tased him yesterday during his fifth period American History class.

A hardworking, genial man who inspires pupils with his passion for history, Mr. M has been voted his school's Best Teacher by the student body for the past three years.

Enraged by the universal love and respect Mr. M receives, I recently attended one of his classes, posing as a new student, and attempted to make him debase himself in front of the kids who adore him by coercing him into saying Franklin Pierce was the greatest president. 
Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States (1853-57), was a northern Democrat whose polarizing support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Fugitive Slave Act deepened North-South conflict and set the stage for Southern secession. An abject failure at worst, well-meaning and mediocre at best, Pierce is consistently ranked among the bottom third of presidents in surveys of historians.

That's why I wanted to get Mr. M to say Pierce was the greatest president. It's obviously not true, so if he said it, his students would think he's a moron and he'd finally be toppled from the goddamn pedestal everyone has him on. 

Yesterday afternoon, in the middle of Mr. M's thoughtful lecture on the root causes of the Civil War, I raised my hand and proposed that Pierce was the greatest president in American history, a champion of freedom, criminally underrated by historians who just don't understand him. While Mr. M conceded that an argument could be made that Pierce was slightly underrated, and that one could plausibly maintain that Pierce was perhaps a middling president, he opined that Pierce was by no measure great and that the greatest president was probably Abraham Lincoln. I declared that Lincoln was a monstrous, Constitution-hating dictator, and Mr. M started saying weirdly hostile things like "There's no way you're in 10th grade, you're like thirty years old."
At that point, I removed a Vipertek VTS-989 Heavy Duty Stun Gun from my backpack, rushed to the front of the classroom, and tased Mr. M in the neck. He instantly dropped to the floor and I stood over him amid the screams of two dozen horrified 10th graders and demanded that he name the greatest president. When Mr. M said "Abraham Lincoln," I tased him again and told him to say Franklin Pierce was the greatest president. Fighting to remain conscious, Mr. M sat up, looked at me, and defiantly said "Pierce was a failure." I tased him a third time and, struggling to be heard over the students' unremitting shrieks, again ordered him to say Franklin Pierce was the greatest president.

In my all-encompassing fury, I failed to notice that a student had run to the main office to get help, and I was suddenly tackled from behind by two security guards who brutally disarmed me and beat me unconscious.

The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Mr. M staring me right in the eye and mouthing the words "Abraham Lincoln." 

Thursday, March 10, 2016

College Freshman Tragically Unaware That’s His Mom’s Ass In Classic Pink Floyd Poster

By James J. Hamilton
College freshman Jake Abbott, whose dorm room wall is decorated by the classic Pink Floyd "Back Catalogue" poster which has graced so many dorm rooms over the years, is tragically unaware that the nude model depicting the cover of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here is actually his own mother.

Commissioned to promote remastered reissues of Pink Floyd's albums, the photograph was taken in London the year Mrs. Abbott spent studying abroad, during which she worked occasionally as a model. Not long thereafter, she married Mr. Abbott and gave birth to Jake, who would likely turn to self-mutilation if he were to now learn the truth about his poster. 

"Jake knows I did some modeling when I was younger," said Mrs. Abbott. "Most of it was clothing advertisements. He's seen some of those old pictures. The Pink Floyd shoot was the only risqué thing I did, and I never told Jake about it because I thought it would be embarrassing for him. But then I visited him at college and saw that poster on his wall..."

Mrs. Abbott took a deep drink from a large glass of wine as she contemplated the Oedipal nightmare waiting to happen. "Oh god, I should've told him a long time ago. I didn't think it would ever come up. Who knew that thing was still so popular? Now it's too late. What if he looks at it while he... Oh god, no..."     

Jake, blissfully ignorant of the fact that he looks at his mom's hot naked ass on a daily basis, told reporters that Pink Floyd is one of his favorite bands and that he bought the poster, along with posters of Bob Marley and John Belushi, at a poster fair held in his school's quad.

When asked which girl on the poster he thought was the hottest, whether he'd used it to stimulate his imagination during masturbation, and whether he experienced any significant castration anxiety, Jake got all weird and refused to answer. "Why are you asking me a bunch of personal questions?" he said. "It's just a poster."

As Jake would know had he actually done the reading assignments for his Intro to Psychology class, Freud may have said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but he undoubtedly would've agreed that a poster of your mom's ass is never just a poster.

Friday, March 4, 2016

Oops! I Spent $250k On Reconstructive Surgery To Turn My Dog Into A Cat, Then Found Out Cats Are Basically Free

By James J. Hamilton
In an all-time classic blunder, I recently spent $250k on reconstructive surgery to turn my dog into a cat, then found out afterwards that cats are basically free and you can get them pretty much anywhere.

Don't get me wrong, I liked my dog. I just kinda felt like the whole "dog thing" had pretty much run its course and I was itching to try something new. When I heard about cats, I immediately realized that's what I'd been looking for. 

I put an ad on Craigslist seeking someone who could turn my dog into a cat and I got a response almost instantly. The price tag for the procedure was pretty high, but I really wanted a cat, so I thought, what the hell, let's do it.

Much to my chagrin, when I showed off my modified pet to family and friends, they told me that anyone can get a cat from the local animal shelter, either for free or for a small adoption fee of like fifty bucks. Imagine how stupid I felt. 

To top it off, both myself and the Craigslist guy are now facing felony animal cruelty charges. Our lawyer says we'll each probably have to spend a year in prison, which might not sound like a lot to you, but as my dog's lawyer pointed out, that's seven dog years. Talk about an epic fail.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Kanye West’s New Album Contains Coded Message Saying Kardashians Are Holding Him Against His Will

By James J. Hamilton
Kanye West's new album The Life of Pablo reportedly contains a coded message saying that the Kardashian family is holding the Grammy-winning rapper against his will.

According to a story published yesterday in the Boston Globe, the newspaper's Spotlight investigative team recently received a package from a source identifying himself as "L. Odom." The package contained a complex cipher and the words "No More Parties In L.A.," which is the title of a song from The Life of Pablo, the seventh studio album by West, who married Kim Kardashian in 2014.

Globe journalist Mike Rezendes (who was portrayed by Mark Ruffalo in the Oscar-winning film Spotlight) spent days poring over the cipher while listening to "No More Parties In L.A." and eventually cracked the code. Rezendes reports that the song's lyrics contain a message from West which, when decoded, states: KARDASHIANS HOLDING ME AGAINST MY WILL SEND HELP I AM A GENIUS.

In the wake of this revelation, footage has surfaced from a 2015 red carpet event in which West can allegedly be seen repeatedly blinking "SOS" in Morse code.

The FBI issued a statement saying it is looking into the situation, and the Globe's Spotlight team said it intends to get to the bottom of this story, citing the possibility that there may be many more people besides West who have been held against their will or otherwise abused by the Kardashians.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Local Man Can't Believe It's Already March

By James J. Hamilton
Local man Hank Waters says he can't believe it's already March.

"It seems like Christmas and New Year's were just a few weeks ago," he told reporters. "Next thing you know, St. Patrick's Day and Easter will have come and gone, and it'll be summer."

Waters also reported disbelief about it being Tuesday. "It still feels like Monday to me," he said. "I don't know where the time goes."  

At press time, Waters was saying he couldn't believe it was already press time.